Exercise: Hard or Soft Landscape

For the soft landscape, I decided to work from a photograph taken of a wide woodland track in Langdon Hills Country Park as this path is quite isolated (and at the time very cold!).

Rather than sketch out the scene (bearing in mind the upcoming “painting outdoors” exercise), I wanted to work more freely and to try to translate a very complicated view without being too tight and fiddly.

The photograph was taken just as spring began, and so there was the contrast between some of the trees and shrubs showing their first leaves and some others still bare, skeleton branches.  The path slopes gently uphill, providing a sense of perspective and distance, while the bareness of the trees providing strong tonal contrasts of sunlight through the branches against deep, dark shadow areas.

Working on a pale blue ground, I began (in acrylic) blocking in the track and the largest of the trees, following by working on larger tonal areas and then final details (photo sequence below).

My thoughts on this painting:

• The sky is far too blue and solid and the branches and too fussy without actually looking like branches!
• The effect of the sunlight through the trees is too “stripy” and the trees do not have form, they are too flat
• Colour is not bright enough for spring (too much white in paint to create the greens)

My main issue on the above painting was the sky, so I decided to attempt another painting, this time working more “negatively” by painting around the branches for the sky, and around the tree trunks, etc.

Second painting below:

This is better than the first, but I’m still not happy with it.  Review:

• Using a darker blue toned background, but then painting the lighter sky colour negatively around the branches (and just leaving some of the background) is much more effective at depicting fine branches than positively painting the branches.
• Adding dabs of the sky colour amongst the trees (especially around the “tunnel” at the end of the path) works to show gaps in the trees without being too detailed.
• The trees are not as stripy and have more form.
• The tonal contrast between the left and right is stronger to show the light source coming through the trees on the right.
• Not happy with the colour again – the greens are too olive and not fresh enough for spring – almost autumnal colours.

While painting this, I was researching modern landscape painters.  One artist who lives locally is Hashim Akib (reviewed in research at the beginning of this assignment).  His work is very bold, using neat, thick acrylic and large brushes to achieve vibrant paintings which are representational but full of life and colour.  A video on YouTube shows him using large, flat brushes to apply his paint, frequently adding two of more colours onto the brush and then applying the paint freely to achieve pure streaks of colour in his work.

I felt working on a larger scale would also free up my brushstrokes so bought some larger brushes (1.5”, 1” etc), flat Daler Rowney brushes and large canvas panels (24 x 32”)

Finished painting:

For the ground, I created a bright blue which is visible throughout the whole painting.  For the sky / branches I expanded on the technique in the previous painting using short, multi-coloured brushstrokes alongside fine branches created by using the edge of a large brush.  I feel this works much better because the broken brushwork, combined with the multi-coloured brushstrokes, breaks up the sky – working negatively also results in finer branches.  I think using the large flat brush on its edge (the Daler Rowney brush has a very fine edge) has created more natural branches as the colour is not applied solidly along the edge of the brushmark.

The main shrub areas were similarly created using directional brush strokes and mixed colour.  Smaller dabs of colour were added using the edge of a large brush or the corner of the smaller 1/2” brush.

I think the top half of the painting works better than the lower half: I probably needed more colour variation/visible brushwork in the dark tones, although I think the strong contrasts work.  Additionally, some of the brushwork could have been bolder – I think you need to consider  the colours used in advance to avoid too many layers making the colour becoming muddy and keep the spontaneity. 

Hard Landscape

After completing this painting, I decided to also attempt a hard landscape using a similar technique.  I have always shied away from painting complicated street scenes; mainly a case of where to start without drawing every line, resulting in an unadventurous painting.

Again this was from a photograph (Bow Lane in the City of London) so, in an attempt to impose my own style on the painting, I printed it out in greyscale to avoid being distracted by actual colour.

I carefully considered the ground colour which I intended would still be visible in areas of the painting to add cohesion.  As the image was of a bright, sunny morning I decided a warm orange would be a good start as this would work well with both yellow tones as well as complementing the blue tones I planned to use for the darker tones and shadows.  The ground was therefore a vibrant orange comprising magenta, yellow and a little white to lighten slightly.

I loosely blocked in the main shapes of the buildings (only drawing a line to indicate the bottom of the row of buildings on the left to get the perspective correct).  The colours used here were yellow, sap green and cerulean for the left side and cerulean, sap green, purple and brown for the buildings in shadow (kept two of the same colours for consistency).  I used the 1.5” brush for this applying the colour with large, sweeping strokes.

My next step was to block in the figures walking up the street to ensure the perspective and scale was accurate, followed by adding the traditional hanging shop signs, again to make sure the perspective was correct and to give me the correct placement of shop fronts / windows, etc.

At this point I also added the sky as a light tone (white, a little magenta and cerulean) along with the main lines of the shop fronts (again using multiple colours on the brush).

I continued working up the main lines of the painting – focussing on only the main lines of the buildings while ensuring strong contrasts between the tonal areas.

Finished painting below:

Review:

I am very pleased with this painting.  It is full of colour and tonal contrasts without being remotely fiddly!

Working larger has definitely helped, as has changing my acrylic paint (to a much thicker brand which is more like the consistency of oils) along with the larger brushes – it makes it physically impossible to be too detailed or fiddly.

The painting is representational and perspectively accurate while keeping a much looser style than I have previously been able to achieve.  However, the paint application is clearly an important part of the painting, all brushstrokes are clearly visible, with areas of thick paint as well as thinner dragged colour.

The ground colour works to bring the whole painting together as it is visible in small areas throughout.  Think it is especially effective on the buildings on the left where I have loosely dragged the darker colours over the top – this gives the effect of solid brick without being too obvious. 

The perspective is fairly accurate – there is the odd line that is slightly out of alignment but I wasn’t going to paint over areas as this would have lost the spontaneity and I don’t think it really matters in the overall scheme of the painting.

Colourwise – the same colours are used throughout the painting (e.g. green and blue used for both shadow and highlighted buildings), just in different proportions.  Also the yellow/white/green combination has been used for both the painted shopfronts / windows / paving in sunlight – it is only the underneath colour showing through which affects the final colour.

I debated whether to add the strings of lights zig-zagging down the street but I think it does pull the image together as it leads the eye through the painting via the hanging signs, as well as the strong contrasts (dark against light sky and light against dark buildings).

The only thing I probably would change is the figures – need to give these more thought before applying paint to canvas.  The smaller figures walking down the street are ok – because I painted the blue shadow around them, it has left small areas of orange ground which define them.  However, I think I should have made the third largest figure more defined, although I did want to treat the figures with the same